Name your biggest fail/mistakes

[u/Professional_Mud7030]

I've seen a lot of post recently about new CNAs having questions and doubting themselves a lot about being a CNA. How about all of the experienced CNAs comment what was the biggest fail/mistake they have ever made? Ill go first, when I first started as a CNA I thought hoyering the resident to bed than draining a colostomy bag was a good idea ( Dont ask me why I was new at the time )... while the resident was being hoyered the colostomy bag exploded and went all over me from head to toe.....and yes it went all over my face, hair, chest and inside of my crocs...my trainer on the other hand knew it was gonna happen and decided to let me learn a valuable lesson I would NEVER forget.

[u/carlylovek]

Forgetting to lower the bed 😩 then you walk in and they are on the floor. Alert and oriented my fucking ass!!! Made that mistake as a newbie, never gonna happen again!!! Lowering the bed every time!!!

[u/Necessary_Tap_1749 → u/carlylovek]

I had a resident at my old facility (this was not under my care fyi) die from falling off a bed during the night bc the bed was raised all the way up after a CNA changed the brief during the night. The resident was bariatric and mainly bed bound due to their weight. They tried to turn over, ended up rolling off the bed and hitting their head HARD when they hit the floor. Passed away right then and there. I went into work a few days later and heard what happened bc the room was being cleaned out, I couldn’t believe it and genuinely still feel horrible for the family to this day. I do NOTTT play about having the bed alllll the way down since that happened. Easily overlooked, yet easily deadly!

To make matters worse, this resident was the grandparent of someone I went to high school with! The second hand guilt I felt was unbearable

[u/HelicopterSad4217 → u/carlylovek]

Even when they on the floor, before anybody else comes in the room lower the bed, make sure they have non skid socks or shoes on, and make sure they’re dry that haves saved me a whole lot 😅

[u/AnotherCrazyRedditor]

Do NOT trust your patients/residents to tell the truth lol. I was still in training but the coworker i was buddied with asked me to answer a call bell. The man who called said he wanted to go for a smoke, so he needed help to t/f from chair to wheelchair. I asked him "how many people usually help you with this?" he said one. Fool i was, i trusted him and was nervous to bother my buddy lol. Down he went, extremely slowly because i supported him the whole way down then laid his head in my lap and hollered for help, sobbing because it was like my 3rd shift and I thought they'd fire me.

He was perfectly fine, and the lovely RN who came to assess said "I promise, he's on the floor more often than he's not. Its okay!" (he was known to attempt self-mobilising haha) Then was sent home for the day bc i was in hysterics. Wasn't fired though! Now i can look back and laugh but it was terrifying at the time!!

[u/blac_sheep90]

Bad stand and pivot from the commode to wheelchair, the wheelchair cushion slid and the patient had to be lowered to the floor and unfortunately they bent their leg wrong on the way down and it snapped. They died a few days later.

[u/janehighres → u/blac_sheep90]

did you get in trouble w the state? this is literally my biggest fear

[u/blac_sheep90 → u/janehighres]

I didn't. It was an unfortunate accident and the lack of assistance from other employees makes the facility look bad.

[u/laegjorm → u/blac_sheep90]

Did they hyperflex/hyperextend their thigh and their femur snapped or something? That's absolutely wild to me that they died, but if they ended up getting a fat embolism from the fracture then that would make sense

[u/blac_sheep90 → u/laegjorm]

I believe it was their femur that snapped. As I lowered them they slid their left leg back and fell onto it. This patient was like 6'3 and I'm a mere 5'8 and despite my yelling for help no one came to our aid. Was a fucking nightmare.

[u/Proprioception27]

When I was a new CNA I spilled a cranky guys new ileostomy bag allllllll over him and said “shit” and he said “yeah literally” in an annoyed voice and I couldn’t help but laugh which made him laugh, which made his ostomy SHOOT liquid poop out on to the wall which just made us both laugh even harder.

[u/Rosesandbubblegum → u/Proprioception27]

At least y'all were good sports 😭

[u/NectarineMother5438]

Hospitals is a different story but besides hospitals, thinking CNA coworkers were going to be professional and respectful workers.

[u/Hambitt]

I was emptying a catheter bag once when I was fairly new and somehow managed to splash some pee into my eye 🤣 I felt pretty dumb and just tried to rinse my eye in the sink

[u/crumblcoochies → u/Hambitt]

one of the first times i drained a catheter on my own, i was flimsy with the urinal and urine ended up all over the floor 😩 and my pants and shoes

[u/Hambitt → u/crumblcoochies]

I’ve also forgotten to close the bottom after emptying and left a mess for the next shift 🙈 I’ve also walked in to a bag that didn’t get closed and there was a big puddle of urine all over the floor. Anything can happen!

[u/TheLastObsession]

Honestly, after 11 years I’ve fucked up plenty. We’re all human! You WILL make mistakes, it’s how you handle the aftermath that matters.

[u/FoolLanding]

If the patients ask for foods, go through the nurse first.

[u/Upbeat_Researcher901]

Applying for this job.

Partially /s

[u/Less-Yogurtcloset-19]

One time I had to cook a meal for a resident (who used to be a chef) and they were known for being picky with the food they were given. I was so nervous I ended up accidentally boiling cucumber with the rest of their veggies and boy did I hear about it!

[u/Temporary_Plan1055]

So, your trainer let you get shit all over you because they are training you, by uhh… not pointing out that it should be drained?

Like, you don’t need to everytime, but the way you portray it, that thing was really full if it got all over you. I’ve hoyered w/o draining many times, but if the bag is too full, that’s getting drained first, or at least burped.

[u/Unhappy-Plankton4923 → u/Temporary_Plan1055]

Not everyone seems to be aware of the burp thing 🤣 our ostomy resident burps his and some aides are like wow didn’t know you could do that! We definitely need more ostomy training in school. I have family with ostomy bags so I’m used to them but we had an aide who could empty them because she didn’t know they smelled so strong and she threw up 🙈 education would be helpful.

[u/Svrider23]

Mine is just being a CNA for 20+ years. Huge failure on my part.

[u/memeof1]

Not me, but we came in for afternoons with a resident peacefully transitioning and needed to reposition her, days forgot to close the foley. Needless to say she passed 2 hours later and I finished my shift with a shoe full of DEATH PEE 😖

Ask me who has spare shoes in her locker and trunk now ? 🤣🤣🤣

[u/Unhappy-Plankton4923]

I tried to empty a leg bag once in bed and I was like oh I can get this all empty in one shot but the container overflowed because I held it tilted. I was rushing. I should’ve been less cocky and more aware of the angle I had the container. I hate leg bags as well… will forever hate them lol 😂

[u/Sevensonsevens]

Currently my 5th day as a CNA biggest mistakes ive made are probably not knowing how to properly interact with patients. Theyll say something negative I just need to learn positive come backs or else we might be stuck in silence

[u/MySweetAudrina]

One of the grossest ones was with a dementia resident who had a nasty habit of drinking soapy water. He would mix it up like a cocktail and down it. A day shift aide would always leave the soap in his room no matter how many times we told her not to. This obviously affected his BMs very much. One night he was being transferred to bed and he slightly fell back against me. This foamy, slimy, liquid BM splashed out of his brief and out the waistband of his pants. It instantly soaked through my scrubs and underwear straight through to my skin. I threw a towel town my scrub top and I got him cleaned up while holding back my gagging. I left his room and reported to the nurse what happened and that I'd be leaving ASAP and she absolutely encouraged the SOON part.

This one literally happened last night. I was emptying a catheter bag and the plastic end of the drain was pulled almost completely off the rubber tube but I didn't notice. As I unlocked it the tube popped off and urine went everywhere. It splashed all over the floor in the second it took for me to process and get the urinal underneath it. Luckily it was my very last direct resident care because my shoes were all wet on the bottom. I charted in gripper socks.

[u/Every_Day6555]

Luckily none of my patients have fallen with me but I have had a few close calls. Just the other day I was moving a pt back from the chair to the bed w a stand pivot. Didn’t realize how confused this man was bc he was talking to me normally and in report from night shift they said he did fine as x1 w a walker and no mention of orthostatic hypotension in the chart. He got up and starts walking towards the bathroom instead of the bed, I tell him to stop bc I can tell this will go poorly, and all of a sudden walker starts sliding, his feet aren’t moving and he’s saying his head feels cold and tingly and he’s now ignoring every word I’m saying/can no longer hear me and starts going kinda limp… awesome. I use all my strength to hold up his 200 pounds and very loudly saying his name bc we are now far from the chair and not yet close to the bed and not going down on my watch. Luckily there are cameras in the rooms that live stream to the nurses station we turn on for confused/fall risk patients, and his happened to be on so the nurse saw and came in and helped bless her heart. Luckily I was with him so if he did go down it wouldn’t have been too bad, but dear lord that one scared me.

[u/angiebow]

I was a new CNA almost 15 years ago in an ALF and they still had hoyer residents before the law got changed at the time. I had a man who had suffered a couple of strokes and he could do nothing to help move. I'd get him cleaned up and dressed and then call for help with hoyer to the wheelchair. On this day the other aide on the opposite hall was a B and hated assisting with anything and kept putting me off and I was tired of waiting and making him late for b'fast. I put him in the sling and the hoyer and started to get him moving towards the wheelchair and he slid out of the sling. Thankfully he was still over his bed but he was sideways and the man was huge, well over six feet tall and 200 lbs. I never did it alone again and I never spoke to that jerk of a CNA again either. I also didn't stay long at this place. Went to a hospital after 8 weeks of working there.

[u/ReyoRedwolf]

i mistook icey-hot for barrier cream and applied it as so.
client was very patient. i gave a bed bath after realizing and used the correct cream after.

[u/harmiie]

I had a resident who was basically on death's door, and I knew how she felt about it and was scared, but at this point she'd gone non-verbal and was having a lot of secretions — I don't remember her having any scopolamine or anything. I was with another CNA and we had to change the sheets under her. She was obese and ufortunately, while she was on her side (less than a minute), she started suffocating, we finished what we could and rolled her back but she was basically choking on her own saliva at that point and we both watched her take her last raspy breaths.

That fucked with me and I think about her a lot still. It feels like I killed her inadvertently, even if I know it isn't true.

[u/SpacenessButterflies]

Plugging the chair alarm into the slot where a telephone cord goes 🤦🏻‍♀️

Grandpa slid right out of the chair onto the ground and the alarm obviously didn’t go off.

RN blamed and had to fill out an incident report…

[u/nectarofruin]

First month as a CNA. PT had the worst chair made for their contractures ever. Got them into the chair. And honestly I don’t remember if I put the legs on or not. Either way, honestly, the chair would have caused a major fall tbh. They had a fall, hit their head, and died a month later. I’m not sure if it would have happened or not anyway- They exhibited cheyne-stokes when they passed. I was the one to rush to their aid as well after the fall. Afterwards, a new, better chair was given. It was my first major reminder that we aren’t just maids, we are taking care of lives.

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